The last few weeks have been filled with grim reports of suicide and bombing attacks in Iraq. They serve as a warning that the struggle against al Qaeda in Iraq, Shi’ite extremists in the Mahdi Army, and other causes of civil violence are not over. As U.S....

The U.S. intelligence community (IC) has made great strides in collecting and analyzing open source information. By contrast, the IC’s outreach to nongovernmental experts lags behind. Such experts are not integral to collection strategies, nor are they adequately...

This first of two related reports examines the evolution of peace building in the U.S. State Department. It begins with a sketch of the role of diplomacy in peace building. It reviews the leadership role of the secretary of state. It proceeds to an examination of...

This second of two related reports looks at the peace-building function at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It examines the evolution of reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) in the Bush administration’s foreign assistance strategy and...

The decision by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to award Kazakhstan the chairmanship of the organization for 2010 underscores a growing recognition of the country’s regional and continental importance. Kazakhstan is a strategic linchpin...

The attack on the authority of the Pakistani state that is being played out on the front pages of today's newspapers has been building up for the better part of a decade. Reestablishing a stronger political and state structure is possible, but becomes more difficult each...

Q1: Why are public health officials concerned about the current influenza outbreak in Mexico?

A1:An outbreak of influenza in Mexico that has killed 20 people, is suspected to have caused up to another 129 deaths, and is...

The US is now deeply engaged in trying to translate the broad strategic concepts for the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict that President Obama announced on March 27th.  As yet, the details of these efforts have not been announced and many are still being debated...

Russia has been on a wild roller-coaster ride for the past three decades with no end in sight. Just in the past year as the global financial crisis deepened, the conventional perception of Russia has changed from “safe haven” from the economic tsunami to one of...

China’s Long March to Retirement Reform: The Graying of the Middle Kingdom Revisited warns that the aging of China’s population could...

Q1: How did the Buner District fall?

A1: On the evening of April 5, a group of heavily armed Taliban entered Buner District in the North-West Frontier from the neighboring Swat Valley. Something unusual happened; the locals...

The United States faces a crisis in defense strategy, planning, programming, and budgeting almost as severe as the crisis it faces in its domestic economy. Its system for formulating defense strategy, planning, programming and budget documents has failed both within the...